Realm Reborn = downgrade?

[Xmbei]

Oh ya the other thing I liked about playing FF's is the ingenuity and uniqueness of each game. In essence they were the same feel and enjoyment but they were never the same. Art direction, combat/leveling/skill system was unique in each one. The originality of each game is what interested players to because it never felt repetative moving from one FF to another. But they always hadf the unique elements and great story telling in each iteration. It is what got me into FF as my favorite video game RPG because they were all unique, for me. If I don't feel cpnnected to the character I am playing on a design basis in first few hours of play, I end up stop playing never have done that for a ff. FF game I will play over and over for the story because it never gets old for me... but I played Skyrim and Oblivion and Fallout, and for the most part I hate playing the same content over and over again because it doesn't grab me as a FF does...

Sorry kind of detracting... but It is what makes me love final fantasy , their quality production. I hope that the game we get lives up to the promise Yoshi has given us. So as I have stated before in this thread I will wait till I actually play to pass final judgement, if it doesn't have that spark when I play it, then I know, this is why I hope I can get into testing. I want to ensure that spark is there for everyone as well as fix glaring bugs and things that 1.0 has that 2.0 doesn't that got my attention . I can never be sure of that spark by watching someone else play.

[lololink]

you are misunderstanding the problem , it's not that they cannot do it , it's that SE will not gave them enough time and money to do it .

[Nemy]

As long as these types of animations have NOTHING to do with combat or gameplay, it's okay for it to be implemented. But seeing as there's no animation lock for 2.0, having the movement animations of 1.0 WOULD affect gameplay. I'm trusting the devs on this one because they honestly seem like they know what they're doing and they're being vastly underappreciated for the amount of dedicated work they have put into this game. It's like you guys are wanting another 1.0 failure. You can throw as many realism arguments around as you like, but you need to realise the people who would rather settle on 'realistic' movements and aesthetics over core gameplay are in the minority and are being ignorant at the fact this is not how MMO's work. The rest of us actually want fluid movements and combat, because that's the main importance in an MMO over graphics and animations. I don't mean to sound disrespectful because I can see why people would want the animations back, but they just don't fly well in an MMORPG.

Needless to say i disagree with you since you do pose the same dilemma almost everyone on your side does, but that last paragraph seems like a decent and collected presentation of that argument (although i consider it to be a fallacy) and i quoted you in my OP.

I suggest you read Zai's post that i quoted above, and also see the video.

[Zezlar]

You folks have to remember as well that Guild Wars 2 development began in 2007. They only had to release once. That's 5 entire years to do all their special effects, and fluid animations (I kinda disagree that the later but ok). A Realm Reborn has been in development for what a little over a year and a half?

[Velhart]

Okay, it seems some people simply do not understand why this choice was made. I understand why there is so much defence for keeping the current animations but what people need to realise is that the current animations do not work in a proper MMO. Before you go crazy on me, you need to understand that even though this is Final Fantasy, it's an MMO first. In an MMO the franchise itself means NOTHING if the gameplay is shabby and poorly developed, hence 1.0 and its failure (also notice SWTOR).

For example, take the classic 'move out of the fire' scenario. You're a caster. A fire appears underneath you. You need to quickly move out of the fire and then continue damaging the enemy. As it stands, to be able to quickly run out of the fire and properly reposition yourself, you need to switch off the targeting, press the movement keys, let go of the movement key and then wait until the character reaches a complete halt before you start casting again. You simply can't allow these kinds of aesthetics to affect combat and gameplay in such an inferior way compared to what's known as 'the standard', or it won't be in any form a success. It's this situation where the animations are affecting core gameplay and shouldn't exist.

As much as people hate others bringing up WoW, there is a BIG reason as to why it's such a success. And no, it's not because it's Warcraft, out of the hundreds of people I've played with not one of them cared about lore (even though I know there are lore-lovers out there), it's because it's the ONLY MMO since its release to be strict to a cast time and not care about animations. You press a movement key and you run, you let go you stop. Everything is instant, and it's fluid and smooth. Is it realistic? Not really. Is it aesthetically pleasing? Not really. The point is, when you're playing an MMORPG, the combat, movement and gameplay have to be fluid, smooth and have the player fully in control of what the character is doing.

As long as these types of animations have NOTHING to do with combat or gameplay, it's okay for it to be implemented. But seeing as there's no animation lock for 2.0, having the movement animations of 1.0 WOULD affect gameplay. I'm trusting the devs on this one because they honestly seem like they know what they're doing and they're being vastly underappreciated for the amount of dedicated work they have put into this game. It's like you guys are wanting another 1.0 failure. You can throw as many realism arguments around as you like, but you need to realise the people who would rather settle on 'realistic' movements and aesthetics over core gameplay are in the minority and are being ignorant at the fact this is not how MMO's work. The rest of us actually want fluid movements and combat, because that's the main importance in an MMO over graphics and animations. I don't mean to sound disrespectful because I can see why people would want the animations back, but they just don't fly well in an MMORPG.

Beautifully written. The most important thing in "any" game honestly is the game play itself. Miyamoto from Nintendo has said several times that how they make games is that they build the core game play and make sure it is solid, then they will make a story around that game play. This is the same thing with MMO's, and even Blizzard did this. They made sure the game play was solid before adding the world, lore, and neat animations in later.

The new development team for FFXIV is going by these ideals, they want to make sure that the game play is as solid and fluid as possible, and one of the things to do was cut down on the animation. You can be disappointed all you like, but on a technical scale, you should understand the situation.

[Felis]

While the animations were nice, the development team's number one focus in A Realm Reborn is on gameplay so even though they were nice animations, the team made the decision to remove them.

I hope it is just a "currently" thing.
It is nice to make animation not too complicated for better gameplay, but too much simplification is bad in the same way.
I hope there is much fine tuning in the beta. If my char run to the side, his body should turn in the run direction and not in the camera direction, or he fall over his own feets. Make A,D for side running as we have now and if you like Q,E for side stepping as we saw in the video.

Give us the option to choose if our char should turn to the run direction or should always be turned to the camera direction.

[Nemy]

I hope I can get into testing.

I actually wanted to ask someone about this, Currently i'm in Europe, (although i will be in LA in November) and i get an "area error" when i try to apply for the alpha. What's the deal?

[lololink]

didn't get any area error while being in europe .

[Xmbei]

i don't know maybe ended up on the wrong region site to your game code region? because I have NA game code and account region and am living in Japan, and I applied just fine through the NA region alpha site with my NA game code account. With no limitation due to my IP... So unsure what happened, and since how its programmed very hard to duplicate results to figure out the problem on your end.

[HiirNoivl]

They're probably on the NA site. They need to click the EU flag at the title page and then try to apply.